Thailand – Wonderfruit is a festival like no other. Held in The Fields at Siam Country Club in Chonburi, Thailand, the weekend has grown over the last decade to become a cultural phenomenon, shaped by the people that love it. Nestled in a clearing in the forest, the landscape heavily influences the ethos of the festival, with sustainability, local resources and human connection being key. Ten DiGiCo consoles were deployed across the festival by Mr.Team Productions and the support by Fuzion Far East, DiGiCo’s Thailand distributor. Mr Team also provided engineers. Joshua Oates, Fuzion’s Business Development Director, explains why only DiGiCo consoles can fit into this unique landscape.
“We have been working with Mr.Team Productions and the Wonderfruit team for many years,” he says. “Throughout that time, the festival has grown from 2,000 attendees to the 35,000 enjoying the extravaganza it is today. Using DiGiCo consoles not only guarantees a clean and reliable sound for every stage, it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate exactly what we can do with a wide range of consoles.”
The Wonderfruit festival benefits from six main live stages and many more performance and workshop spaces. The show does not stop so that festivalgoers can experience everything from fine dining to karaoke 24 hours a day across its five days. The range of consoles in use is comprehensive, from the Quantum Q338 to the SD10, SD12 and S21. The variety and portability of these consoles ensure that if a console is needed at the last minute for a late-night party, any space can be covered.
Mr Team Productions provides most of the festival’s audio needs. As Suat ‘Pok’ Kohkiat, Director of Mr Team Productions, explains, he takes a very hands-on role when it comes to supporting his team. Dust is a well-known challenge on the Wonderfruit site. It is very fine and can get into every part of the audio equipment, but with DiGiCo, Kohkiat can be assured that the show will go on.
“We have been supporting the show for a decade, so we are used to the dust! We now have a special treatment for the faders that helps us deal with it,” he expands. “DiGiCo support is great, and the consoles are rider-friendly and robust. We know that visiting engineers will be able to turn up with their show files and get started. Everything just works.”
For Fuzion Far East, DiGiCo draws in new customers, and being able to demonstrate the equipment in an environment like Wonderfruit is a fantastic opportunity. With harsh, real-world conditions, Wonderfruit is the perfect opportunity to showcase what DiGiCo consoles can do.
“With so many staffed stages we had over 100 people on site, from sound engineers to stage-crew, so we needed desks that were reliable and accessible,” Oates continues. “DiGiCo is a consistently reliable digital console, so we actually take our clients, perspective and current, to the festival to show them exactly what is possible.”
For Kohkiat, using DiGiCo consoles makes every process smoother. From the guest engineers who can confidently walk up, load their show files and open the faders, to the in-house engineers working in advance offline to perfect every show, everyone benefits from the DiGiCo ecosystem. As he concludes, Wonderfruit is a vast, unique festival, and only DiGiCo consoles are robust enough to keep it going.
“We’re very familiar with the festival now,” he finishes. “My duty is to be on my bike cycling around to every stage, checking it out to make sure everything is OK. I’m a delivery service for my crew. It is more than a festival, it is a lifestyle, during the day we even provide a sound system for cabins, and then cooking or yoga classes. DiGiCo consoles fit right in, they are on everyone’s rider and they always work.”
